It's A Pretty Good Night For A Drive

This Red-tailed Hawk is super dead. According to my sources its been hanging from this tree for over a month. What do you think? Was it shot? Or did it fall to the talons of the Great Horned Owl family that was a stone's throw away?

North Dakota. I live in North Dakota. Like several of the places Ive found myself living in the last few years, I am faintly surprised to find myself here. It's not somewhere I've thought about much. The prairies are not known for their breathtaking scenery (although I am very partial to them so far), for their interesting culture or amazing weather. The birds, however, have been great, as my previous post can attest to.

But to get here, I had to go through some other places first. Now you too can bear witness to the world seen through the eyes of The Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive.

California Gull. Indirectly responsible for the continued existence of Mormons. Birders have mixed feelings about them. Have you forgiven?

Crowley Lake. Mono Lake's fresh southern little sister. Almost as good-looking. 

Today was my first day of work here at Lostwood National Willife Refuge, in northwest North Dakota. Culturally, it reminds me a little bit oh the Somerset/Donegal area of Pennsylvania where I worked a couple years ago except a bit more rural. The landscape is like nothing I've ever seen....but I'll tell you about that later. I have been brought in to focus on the Piping Plovers that lurk throughout the region...but I'm not sure how thats going to work out, considering the incredibly high water in all the wetlands they would normally be found in. Most of their nesting places are under water....so what's good for the ducks is bad for the plovers.

More to come. Bird relentlessly.

Look at this robin. It chopped a worm in half and is eating it. If this doesn't say "spring", then I don't know what does.

"Why am I at a beach? And what is this mound of weird shit I'm sitting on?" - Gray Flycatcher on a tufa lump, Mono Lake.